Wash sprouts, removing any browned or yellowing leaves. Cut them in quarters, toss with a pinch of salt, and set aside. Peel the onion, cut in half, then cut into "angel's wings," slicing from top end to root end in thin slices.

In a skillet large enough to hold all the sprouts, AND with a lid, heat the oil. When almost smoking, toss in the onions, stir till coated with oil, then cover and turn the heat down to medium and cook for about fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally. When the onions have turned a rich, dark color add salt and pepper to taste, and the wine. Scrape up any stuck bits, add the brussels sprouts, stir to coat, and add the chicken stock. Cover and cook for a few minutes till the sprouts are mostly cooked (stick a fork in them to check). Uncover and cook for a few minutes till the juices are reduced.

Cook's notes:

If the onions begin sticking to the pan, moisten them with a little wine.

Don't use a nonstick pan; any metal saute pan or skillet is preferable.

Don't use extra-virgin olive oil, it has too low of a smoking point and the heat destroys most of its anticarcinogenic nutrients. Any good olive oil, vege oil, or canola oil is fine. Corn oil, on the other hand, is not.

The sweetness of the onions balances the bitterness of the sprouts very well. Only a tiny quantity of salt is needed to bring out the flavours.

World: Counting the Dead in Mumbai

Raw Story is reporting that 195 people lost their lives in the attacks on Mumbai, the financial and showbiz heart of India. The number includes 26 foreigners and 15 of the security forces who fought them. Eleven terrorists were also killed, and one terrorist, a Pakistani national, is in custody.

The Times of India is reporting that the captured terrorist has told his police interrogators that the terrorists received assistance from locals in Mumbai. Given the extreme carnage and destruction in Mumbai carried out by a mere dozen terrorists, it is possible that a significant number of terrorists got away and blended in to the local population. Sources among the survivors have claimed that the terrorists appeared to be quite familiar with the layout of the hotels they took over. However, survivors of violent incidents are not the most reliable source of evidence.

Also, given interrogation methods favoured by the Indian police, it is quite possible that the suspect in custody is telling them whatever he thinks they want to hear. Other things the suspect, the unfortunate Azam Amir Kasab, has told the police: The terrorists' specific mission was to target Israelis to avenge atrocities on Palestinians.

This is why, he claims, they attacked Nariman House. Times of India's sources said Kasab's colleagues killed in the operation had stayed in Nariman House earlier. Interesting. How would Muslims be able to rent in Nariman House, a building owned by an Israeli businessman who rented only to Jews?

Also, the dead terrorists who had previously stayed at Nariman House assumed the identities of Malaysian students. Does this mean that Malaysians are involved? Or is the guy just saying whatever comes to mind?

Meanwhile, the Independent reported on Friday that two of the arrested gunmen appear to have been Britons of Pakistani descent. Since there is only one gunman in custody, it is clear that some sort of misunderstanding occurred. Moreover, the unfortunate Kasab has given the names of all his colleagues at this point and claimed that they are all from Pakistan (although that claim may embrace a multitude of sins, given that many individuals who are Pakistani or Indian or Chinese by ethnicity but citizens of the U.S., UK, or any other nation, often make trips to the old country to visit friends or relatives, or merely to ascertain their cultural roots.

The foreigners killed appear to have come from various nations, including Mauritania, Singapore, and Cyprus. Earlier reports that the terrorists specifically targeted U.S. and U.K. passport holders appear to be incorrect.

Some 300 people were injured. The terrorists, who appear to have been well-trained in military tactics, well-armed and provisioned for exactly such a battle, took three buildings — Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, Oberoi and Trident Hotels, and Nariman House, the last being a building owned by an Israeli who rented to Chabad-Lubavitchers. Apparently, some of the Lubavitchers were U.S. citizens.

All eight inhabitants of Nariman House were killed before Indian commandos retook the building. The terrorists also targeted a hospital and the main Mumbai railway station. The New York Times is reporting that the terrorists immediately killed everyone they came across in the various buildings they invaded, although they allowed security forces to assume that they had taken hostages. The terrorists also fired randomly at people on the street and in facing buildings, killing several bystanders whose only crime appeared to be being within the line of fire.

CNN is reporting that the terrorists had planned on killing 5,000 people.

U.S. intelligence is stating that it has no firm opinion as to who is behind the attacks. According to the NYT, the Indian government seems to believe that Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, assisted the Lashkar e Taiba, or LeT, a militant Islamic group in Pakistan, in carrying out the attacks.

The terrorists claimed membership of the "Deccan Mujahideen." The Deccan is the mountainous plateau that divides North and Central India from South India. Mujahideen roughly translates to "freedom fighters." The group has not been involved in previous incidents and appears to be virtually unknown.

Indian security forces based their suspicions on the discovery of a boat adrift off the coast of Mumbai. The captain of the boat was discovered bound, face-down on the deck, dead. Four crew members are missing; and the logs from cell-phones retrieved from the boat indicate that they had been used to call Jalalabad, in Pakistan. Indian security have also, according to the Times of India, recovered multiple identity and credit cards from many different organizations. The level of sophistication involved is believed to indicate ISI involvement.

The current leader of Pakistan, best known for being the husband of Benazir "Pinkie" Bhutto, the corrupt Asif Ali Zardari, has warned India against holding Pakistan responsible while simultaneously, through the other side of his neck, warning Pakistani militant groups of a strict response should any of them be found responsible.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, advisor to President-elect Barack Obama, as well as previous presidents, and a supposed expert on the Middle-East and South Asia, claimed in his book, The Search for al-Qaeda, that Usama bin Laden assisted the ISI in developing LeT. A devastating attack on India's Parliament was carried out in 2001 by another terrorist group, Jaish e Mohammad, also apparently in collusion with the ISI. It is not clear at this time which of these two terrorist organizations is behind the current attack.

The ISI has long operated as an independent force in Pakistan. It is controlled by no one and beholden, apparently, only to U.S. military and intelligence who supply it with arms and aid. It has been instrumental in the downfall of politicians who have not toed its line. It is quite possible that the ISI, acting on its own, planned and executed the attack on Mumbai with the intent to destabilize relations between India and Pakistan: an attempt that may well suceed, given the increase in such incidents since George W. Bush first took power.

For evidence of such increase in terrorism, see Rep. Henry Waxman's letter to Colin Powell written in 2004. The letter points out that while the misadministration of Gee Dumbya manipulated data to make it appear as if terrorist incidents decreased during his ill-favoured reign, the underlying data make it clear that the number of incidents had actually increased.

The only good news that has come out of this is that President-elect Barack Obama has already formed and announced an emergency advisory team to deal with intelligence received on the Mumbai situation. However, unfortunately, Obama does not assume the reins of power for a little over fifty days as yet, during which time the Idiot-in-Chief can fuck the situation up in a hundred different ways.

And before I forget - thank you, George, for leaving the world in the shitty state it's in. We couldn't have done it without you, ya little schmuck. While you bombed the crap out of women and children in Iraq, destroying the cradle of civilization, al-Qaeda had plenty of time to build up in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thanks.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Food: Hard Times

It's cold and the economy sucks. Times like this, you want to make a big pot of something that will keep you warm and fill your belly and not take too much time or money. So here's a recipe for all you food lovers that's easy (but not quick) and tastes good and won't require you to hock the cat.

Place meat in pot, top with rice, beans, potatoes, carrots, celery. Add onion, garlic, basil, chillies. Add tomatoes and their juices if any. Add spices and herbs, stock, and stir once or twice to mix.

Cook's notes:

Celery leaves contain most of the nourishment of celery, so use them. Yes, they're strong, but they'll be smothered in the other ingredients.

Don't peel the potatoes because most of their nutritive value is in the skins. Scrub them, cut out any eyes and any green areas. Use waxy potatoes like Yukon Golds or Yellow Finns, which hold their shape well.

If you can't eat potatoes, for any reason, substitute turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, celeriac, fennel bulbs, sweet potatoes, yams, or squash in combination, bearing in mind that sweet tastes like parsnip, sweet potatoes, and squash, need to be balanced with things that taste bitter, sour, or simply green, like celeriac or fennel, and bland-tasting things like turnips and rutabagas.

You can use country ribs (boneless ribs) instead of stew meat, if you cut off some of the fat. Don't try to cut it all off, it's a losing battle. Besides, the fat melts off during cooking, and keeps the other ingredients from sticking and burning. Notice that this recipe does not call for salt. Add it if you want, I found it didn't need it.

You can cook this two ways.

If you have an oven and an oven-proof casserole or pot with a lid, layer all the ingredients in there and stick it in the oven at 325F (you'll need to preheat the oven at about 400F for 20 minutes, then turn it down to 325). Give it a stir halfway through. Cook for 2.5 hrs.

If you don't have a working oven, put all the ingredients in a heavy dutch oven or large soup pot on the stove, add a cup of water, stir once or twice, cover, and cook over high heat for about ten minutes (or until the liquid is simmering). Then turn the heat down to low. Come back in about 1.5 hours and give it a stir to make sure there's enough liquid and nothing's stuck. Add more water if needed. Let it cook for another 1.5-2 hrs while you make yourself useful elsewhere.

Depending on the number of people you have to feed, and their appetites, this stew can provide about ten meals. After it has cooled off, store it in the fridge and reheat in the microwave in individual portions. If you don't like the idea of eating the same thing every day, use different garnishes: parsley, green onions, cilantro, fresh chillies, chopped tomato, diced raw onion, caramelized onions, deep-fried onions or shallots, grilled or fried bacon, crumbled, will vary the taste while incurring very little extra working and still providing excellent nutrition.

For Your Thanksgiving ... Enjoyment?

Not sure quite how to categorize this. It's like the arack someone once gave me. The glass was the size of a thimble. Being used to drinking wine in glasses large enough to empty half a bottle, I scoffed at the tiny vessel. I should have known something was up when everyone else at the table guffawed out loud with a definite lack of couth.

The upshot of that experience was that when people give you something in tiny quantities you should ingest it in tiny quantities. Also not flap your gob about how the quantities might be too tiny. At least not until after you've shot some portion of it out your nose.

On that note, Slate Magazine gives us TWELVE FUCKING PAGES FOR CRISAKE of Gee Dumbya's witlessisms. In very tiny doses. Please to seize a glass of teh holiday spirits for imbibement while perusing these. Also please to distract yourself periodically, as attempting to read or view more than half a page at a time will cause your brain to suffer a serious fracture with reality or the capacity for rational thought.

Mother Earth -- keeps me sane, I hope we take better care of you in the future starting NOW

My co-workers who make life much more interesting at work

The politicians who really do care and work hard to make life better for all of us ... yes, I believe they do exist ... few and far between maybe ... which makes me even more thankful for the ones that exist

ICANHASCHEEZBURGER for making me laugh when my body really really needs it

The many writers who take me to deeper places, who make me think more deeply about things outside my experience

Fannie Lou Hamer

all the brave lesbians that we don't know about who struggled inch by small inch to come out and pave the way for us -- you are our courageous mothers and sisters

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi [Westerners know him as Mahatma Gandhi]

Emma Goldman

Laura Nyro

Tweety Bird

La Bohème and its creator, Giacomo Puccini

Freedom Fighters the world over

I could go on and on ... but as you can see I have so much to be thankful for ... so many people and creations enrich my life.

"President-Elect Obama strongly condemns today's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and his thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the people of India. These coordinated attacks on innocent civilians demonstrate the grave and urgent threat of terrorism. The United States must continue to strengthen our partnerships with India and nations around the world to root out and destroy terrorist networks. We stand with the people of India, whose democracy will prove far more resilient than the hateful ideology that led to these attacks[,...]."

Our Future President and the First Family handing out Thanksgiving food to the needy at their local food bank. That's some Family values we can get behind. Gotta go hand out Thanksgiving dinner to los gatos!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of yez! Have a wonderful time with your loved ones in grateful enjoyment of Nature's bounty. Stay warm and safe and drive carefully.

Monday, November 24, 2008

The Countdown Clock

Man, those seconds just can't run out fast enough for me. Or any other of my fine fellow bloggers. The remaining denizens of La Casa de Los Gatos don't seem to care as long as they get their 18 hours of shuteye per day, interspersed with fine kibble, treats, toys, pets, catnip, and the daily constitutional exploration of the hillside, but.

Is there anything that bothers this pathetic, revolting little man? Does he think for even one minute of the nearly 5,000 coffins in which the remains of his fellow-citizens lie moldering? The tears of their parents? Their spouses and children? The suffering their families and friends endure, having lost a loved one? The estimated 50,000 or so lying in their own piss in military hospitals or suffering quietly at home? Missing a limb or an organ, struggling to get along on disability payments, homeless? Doomed to a lifetime of fighting the mental and emotional impact of what has been seen and lived through?

And what of the Iraqis who have died by the hundreds of thousands? Does he ever think about, see, respond to, the sight of a pool of blood blackening in the desert sun? Filled with the limbs, separated from their erstwhile owners, of children, housewives, cab-drivers, innocent bystanders, stallholders in the marketplace where the latest atrocity occurred? A little more than two years ago, a Lancet study estimated the number of Iraqi dead at 655,000. UNHCR estimates 4.7 million refugees, both inside and outside Iraq, most in dire need of food, shelter, medical aid.

Does the monster-in-chief ever contemplate the children who have seen their parents blown up before their eyes, the fathers who have no jobs but still must feed their children, the mother whose child burned and stuck to her body when our troops opened fire on her car?

Because, in addition to that first heart-wracking headline, in fact, almost immediately below it, I notice this:

The Green Zone blast splashed blood and seared flesh across the grey concrete barriers at the entrance, according to an AFP correspondent.

Meanwhile, the rotten thing that wears the mantle of this country's leader announced today that he

believes the Iraq war was a success and is "very pleased" with what is happening there.

[He added] ..."remarkable" progress had been made in Iraq since the late dictator [Saddam Hussein] was toppled in 2003.

"People have been able to take their troops out of Iraq because Iraq is becoming successful. I'm very pleased with what is taking place there now," he said, adding there still is "a lot of work" to be done.

"We are bringing troops home because of the success in Iraq. But Iraq is not yet completely safe.

"So there will be a US presence for a while there at the request of the Iraqi government," he said.

"The United States is willing to continue to help. Most countries there within a very broad coalition have come home but we want to help this government," he said without further elaborating.

Of course, without further elaborating. Either he's lying through his teeth or he, as usual, doesn't have the first fucking clue what he's talking about. He doesn't elaborate on his statements because someone, some very malevolent wretch in the bowels of this misadministration, writes these deliberately disingenuous things for him to say, and he parrots them as his "handlers" tell him to. He has nothing to say about the armless, the legless, the blind and insane, those proud wounded heroes of his money-burning war that is crashing and burning our economy around our ears. Jesus, what a fucking blind, limited, self-satisfied pig he is. A thousand, no, a million curses on his empty head.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

The Secretary of State is a ...

Harry Shearer has this wonderful radio show on Sundays here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Near the end of his show he records imaginary conversations with famous people -- usually politicians. Today's was Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. The imaginary conversation was mostly about Bill handing over the list of donors to Obama's team. But near the end of the conversation, imaginary Bill says to Hillary:

"Well, Madeline Albright and Condi Rice were warm-ups. You made it official. The Secretary of State is a woman's job."

I laughed at first because it was something that was kicking around in my noodle. Of course, there is that saying: "Never send a man to do a woman's job." Might be true in this case. Maybe women are better peacemakers. And we desperately need a peaceful planet right now.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

David Letterman: You're an Asshole and a Bigot!

And, James Franco, you're a wimp!

Did you see James Franco being interviewed by David Letterman last night? The interview was about Franco's involvement with the movie Milk. He plays Harvey Milk's lover. So, of course, the asshole interviewer has to pull out those old tired jokes: "So, how drunk did you have to be to kiss Sean Penn?'

Old? Tired? YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

I am so sick of those kinds of jokes. We lesbiqueerTrans folk have had to endure these stupid questions our whole lives. Bigots, do you get it? It is homophobic to ask those kinds of questions. You're all trying to act so liberal because you're actually talking about queers ... but you really think that we are literally Q-U-E-E-R. The whole dialog is about your discomfort with our sexuality -- it has nothing to do with us and our magnificent sexuality.

I mean really, James Franco, the whole point of the movie is liberation from homophobia so how come you couldn't say something strong about this issue to David Letterman?

Be an ally. A true ally. Not some fake Hollywood "Oh-I-voted-against-Prop-8" kinda ally. Be real. Put yourself on the line .... like we have to in our jobs sometimes. Good golly -- grow a backbone!!!

Another thing: YOU ARE ACTORS!!! You act all kinds of things that are not about you as a person. Stick up for yourself as an actor ... don't get all kinds of squirmy when people ask "How could you kiss Sean Penn?" I'm a lesbian and I don't think it would be a big deal to kiss Sean Penn if I were acting!!!! So, that's why I think this entire line of questioning is homophobic.

Have some class like Susan Sarandon when someone asked that stupid question of her ... in The Hunger she kissed Catherine Deneuve: "Who wouldn't want to kiss Catherine Deneuve?"

Politics: Goodbye To The Old

Go leave a message, if you want. Or entertain yourself by reading the messages others have left. Needless to say, there isn't a single message (so far) expressing regret that the Failure-in-Chief is leaving.

Politics: From The Department of

You Can't Make This Shit Up: KKKarl Rove, aka Turdblossom, aka Brainfather of the Thousand-Year Republican Reich is attempting to give our new President advice on the politicization of the Justice Department.

Yes, that would be the same KKKarl Rove who, under Bush's tenure, politicized the Justice Department — by firing out of hand, and for no good reason anyone has yet determined, manyexcellentcareerattorneys (like David Iglesias, to offer just one example) for not being, what's a good phrase? Partisan hacks? Tools? Extreme Christian-Reichwing conservatives willing to bend over and take it in the keister for KKKarl? And by hiring hacks like Monica Goodling to oversee the hiring practices of the Department. Monica Goodling*, whose sole qualification for the position consisted of an unvarying allegiance to the Republican party.

* Note: Link to a PDF of DOJ investigation of Goodling.

Jason Linkins has the dirt over at HuffPo, with a big ha-ha of bitterly ironical laughter. Truly, it sucketh the chrome right off a high-rise building to have that motherfucker KKKarl offering his counterfeit two cents on the issue of politicizing the very office that is supposed to ensure justice for all. On the plus side, our new President is ignoring the little maggot.

The cherry on KKKarl's shitpile-dessert has to be his disingenuously-posed question about the (obviously greatly-hoped for, at least by KKKarl) firing of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. KKKarl had targeted Fitzgerald for investigation, for the unthinkable crime of actually investigating the KKKarl Cabal. Hopes ran high all over blogtopia (y,Sctp!) for well over a year. Hopes that Fitzgerald, keen, methodical, impartial, painstakingly devoted to Justice, would find a way to topple the Evil Empire built by Cheney, Rove, Bush, and their rage of hunchmen.

Hopes that died a sad death when it became clear that Fitzgerald was stymied by factors outside his control. But we dare say that the thought of revenge burned brightly in our breast anyway. Many of us prayed and hoped and worked for the day when this vile and wretched ambulatory bag of putrescence would finally be brought to justice for the vast and thorough corruption he had worked on the nation. The political discourse that he had flung into the gutter. The bitter partisanship that he cultivated like some malodorous fungoid. The fear, paranoia, hate, bitterness that divided us from each other in this nation even as his puppetmaster's other favourite puppet was flapping his gums about being a "uniter, not a divider."

No one has singlehandedly contributed as much to the destruction of everything this nation stands for as this nasty little man. Is it too much to hope that karma bites him in the tush? What would be a suitable fate for him? We'd like to wish him a thousand incarnations as a cockroach, but most cockroaches probably have a more beneficial relationship with humanity than this scum. Multiple lifetimes as a scum-sucking bottom-feeding eel? A diatom? A bacterium that survives on fecal matter?

Perhaps we'd settle for seeing him alongside Dick and Al in an orange jumpsuit. Don't forget the wrist and leg shackles.

Environment: Living Responsibly

reminds me of that scene in The Matrix, where Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus) has been captured by Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith), who is pondering the human species as a carcinogen.

Responsible people have two children or fewer, and try to live in harmony with their environment. We have nearly killed our Mother Earth. Please do your bit to bring her back to health, today and every day.

Politics: Satan Indicted, Part Two

As we noted yesterday, Dick "Satan" Cheney and Alberto Gonezales were indicted, which news brought dances of joy throughout the nation.

Blogging buddy and commenter ConnecticutMan1 points out that there's more to the story, and thank'ee kindly, fella.

The Brownsville Herald has the details. For those who can't be bothered to click the link, the gist of the story is that one Juan Angel Guerra, District Attorney for Willacy County, Texas, apparently has bigger balls than most of our other officials, elected or appointed, who have watched Satan and his puppet Dumbya McDrunkerson destroy this country for the past eight years.

Five other officials were also indicted, all high-level officeholders in Texas. According to the Herald, Cheney has about $85 million invested in Vanguard alone. Yaknow, there was a time when Dick Cheney drove his family around in a second-hand VW Beetle. And we can't find any record of him making brilliant financial decisions while he was head of Halliburton. Although there's plenty of evidence that Halliburton lost money while he was at the helm.

Nowadays, by some mysterious process not entirely clear to us, Satan's favoured child apparently has huge amounts of money to invest in various companies. Because you just know that ol' Dick, like most investors, heeds the good advice of financial mavens and does not keep all his eggs in the single basket of Vanguard.

The article goes on to state that our esteemed Vice president "is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees." Interesting. A conflict, in fact, of interesting. After all, if you're the Veep and you weigh in on an issue like this, is there anyone who will actively oppose you? Or blow a whistle? Especially when they know that your father is the Devil himself?

Interestingly, one of the other entities indicted by the Willacy County Grand Jury is a corporation known as GEO. GEO is one of the private companies that run prisons for a profit. Apparently, prisoners have died in prisons run by the GEO Corporation. No surprise there, since a private corporation is, naturally, more interested in low costs and high profits than in keeping the people under its control safe, healthy, or even alive.

Over at HuffPo, writer David Latt asks if Cheney will escape prosecution via a Presidential pardon (now, don't get upset just yet) and then resurrects our hopes by pointing out that the Spawn of Shaitan has not yet been convicted, merely indicted. Even a president as ignorant and uncaring as Dim Son cannot pardon someone who has not been convicted.

Now, as we all learned in law school, a good prosecutor with a grand jury as his tool can indict a ham sandwich. Satan's Porker Dick is a little more than a ham sandwich, however, and will no doubt seek to slither out of that long-hoped for confinement in Guantanamo with matching orange jumpsuit and shackles. Either that or he'll rip off his human disguise and be revealed as some reptilian lifeform, like V or something. Oh, yes, and the judge has yet to sign the indictment before the prosecutor can serve it upon Satan's Own Child.

The prosecutor in this case is about to leave office soon. Let's hope a judge signs and the order is served upon Shaitan II on 21 January or very shortly thereafter. Perhaps someone else would consider taking up this issue? Congress? Anybody?

Note: Will Bunch, over at Attytood, says this indictment ain't gonna put Satan's Favourite Son in jail anytime soon. (Google it. He's never heard of our tiny little blog with its three readers.) Will, you really know how to shatter a person's dreams, don'tcha?

But Will does have an excellent article up on the prison in Texas that's behind this indictment. Read it if you have even a trace of human feeling or sympathy for the undocumented workers who might have cleaned your home or church, or kept your garden healthy and beautiful, or served your food, or picked your fruit and vegetables. Guantanamo is terrible, Abu Ghraib is a burning sore on our collective conscience, but most people don't even know what our paid officials are doing to people right under our noses.

So, even if Iblis Himself doesn't end up in a nice fall-coloured piece of clothing paid for by teh taxpayer, a person can (and should) always hope and plan and work to have the miserable son of a turtle indicted for at least a few of the many, many crimes he has committed.

The story goes on to explain on exactly what grounds Satan was indicted. See, apparently Dickie Boy owns a stake in the Vanguard Group

" ... which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and 'at least misdemeanor assaults' on detainees by working through the prison companies."

Remember when we blogged about the prison-industrial complex in this country? This country which has imprisoned approximately one per cent of its total population? How that job of imprisoning the working poor had then been outsourced to private industry which was charging taxpayers a hefty fee for "taking care" of our unfortunate fellow-citizens even as it exploited their labour and used it to drive down the wages of the working poor further?

Well, it looks as if some prosecutor has finally discovered a pair of cojones lying around and clapped them on. Oh, yeah, and we forgot to mention that Alberto Gonezales was also indicted, on the grounds that he had stopped an investigation into the abuses going on in these detention centers.

Hallelujah. Will wonders never cease?

La Casa de Los Gatos recommends a glass or two of the spirits of your choice in celebration. Will Al and Satan's Dick actually make it into a prison? With orange jumpsuits and leg shackles? Will they be making our license plates?

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Vatican Empire and Prop 8

President George W. Bush meets with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican June 9, 2007. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (VATICAN)

I feel that people are focusing too much attention and anger towards the Mormons. We must remember the power of the Catholic Church. And we must remember that it was the current Archbishop of San Francisco, George Niederauer, former Catholic bishop of Salt Lake City, who rallied the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to join forces and campaign in favor of Prop 8. He started the ball rolling.

The Catholic Church is powerful and wealthy. The Church is very secretive about its wealth. Why? Well, would you keep filling your parish's envelopes if you knew how wealthy the Church was?

(The Catholic people are a different story. Many Catholics are working class and poor. I think of the Catholic people and the Catholic Church/Government as different entities. I was one of those Catholics at one time. Very devoted to Jesus' philosophy of love thy neighbor -- that's where I learned how to be a progressive, a liberal, a radical y'all!)

In the bowels of the Vatican are art treasures worth ... well, it's hard to evaluate ... there's so much of it and so much of it is worth millions. And that's just the art ... that's not counting the real estate they own all over the world -- and I'm NOT talking about the property that churches, rectories, convents, and schools are built on. No. I mean hard cash type real estate. A bulging stock portfolio. (Although not worth as much as it used to be worth.) Companies that they own. Huge deposits in foreign banks.

If you can, get a hold of a book called The Vatican Empire by Nino Lo Bello, a former Rome correspondent for Business Week.

Focus some of your disagreement towards the Catholic Church ... share the wealth ... don't hog all that energy for only the Mormons. Start boycotting things related to the Catholic Church.

LGBTQ: Teh Effect of Teh H8

OK, having been laid off a couple of jobs, your humble blogger would be the last person on the planet to experience, oh, schadenfreude, maybe? Or inappropriate laughter? Or any kind of positive reaction to hearing about how someone lost their job.

Except, maybe, in this case. Because, y'know, it's just too fucking laugh-your-guts-out rich that these monstrous assholes should be losing their jobs BECAUSE they spent so much of their assets pushing hate.

No, seriously. We were thinking irony had up 'n died a lingeringly slow and painful death with the nomination of Sarah Failin' for possible accidental Veep. We are so glad to hear it was only in its last throes but managed to pull off a miracle cure. Oh yes.

What, you ask? What the hell happened? Only this: The Colorado Independent is reporting (via the Huffington Post) that Focus on the Family, James Dobson's oleaginous little band of maroons, as Bugs Bunny might term them, spent so much money trying to convince the yokels to vote for Prop. Hate (the California proposition which passed with a slight margin recently and will strip gay couples of the right to marry, marooning, as it were, those who might already have married in a legal no-man's-land) that they're now laying off 20 per cent of the workforce.

Just two months ago, they had laid off a bunch of people. The half a million dollars they pumped into propping up Prop. Hate ate right through their coffers. Good. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of bigots. Hey, y'all who tithe or donate to FoF? You could have pooled your dollars and kept, oh, some 20 people in the workforce furthering some real Christian aims or some family-oriented positive stuff instead of, you know, worrying about other people's naughty bits.

Because Prop. Hate is going down to defeat sooner or later. You coulda just lit that money on fire and used it to, I dunno, heat your home? Light your cigar? Or given it to some people who do some REAL good, instead of this bunch of podunk panty-sniffers.

And check out who sits on the board of this hateful organization: None other than Elsa Prince, mother of Erik Prince (yes! The guy who started Blackwater, your friendly neighbourhood mercenary corps!) and Betsy DeVos, who is married to that Amway dude. Momma Prince has buckets of money from her first husband's auto parts company and has used it to fund so-called "socially conservative" issues. Daughter Betsy Boo was the chairman of the Michigan Repulsive party. Momma Prince threw in nearly half a million of her own money to make sure that you and your same-gender partner can't get married.

So, boycott Amway seems to be the first conclusion to draw. And if you get a resume from one of these laid-off FoFers, be sure to put it in the circular file. Don't forget to participate in any action(s) against Blackwater, the Princes, the DeVoses, or Amway.

In other, happy news, the Christian right appears to be losing the battle for the minds and wallets of the people. Apparently, they've consistently failed to meet their fundraising goals of late, have been forced to scale back repeatedly since 2005, and at their last Rally for Hate, drew a mere 10,000 mindwashed morons instead of the 70,000 they announced would turn up.

How about a new book for the new era? We're thinking of a title along the lines of "Dobson Bashing for Queers." Is that a YES?

Politics: Barack Obama and Racism

On November 5th of the year 2008, 52 per cent of America's voting populace heaved a huge sigh of relief amid cries of "Yes, We Did!" (OK, November 4th for those of us who just had to stay up till the last possible minute to enjoy that early victory.)

But what is it that we just did? Did we overcome racism, hatred, discrimination? Did we set an example for the whole world that in America, if you work hard enough, your dreams can come true?

No. All we did was elect a biracial man to the highest office of the land. He probably could not have won if he were not half white. And even though his mother was a white American, and he was raised by his white grandparents, we still heard, for two years, about how he was a Muslim, born in Kenya, an Arab, a Manchurian candidate, a friend of PLO terrorists and cousin to an African despot, et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseam. And if you were not nauseated by the endless drivel spouted by the hatemeisters of right-wing blogs, it's because you were not reading them or exposed to the almost psychotic reality-refuting venom they were disseminating.

Today, the Christian Science Monitor reports (via the Huffington Post) that some 200 racist incidents have already occurred as documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. To put this in perspective, consider, if you will, that exactly 13 days have passed since the election. That's roughly 15 incidents of racism per day.

Interestingly, the CSM refers to President Obama as "black." Many white and biracial people consider him biracial, not black. But in the U.S., thanks to the ugly legacy of slavery, there is something called the "one-drop" rule: If you have a single ancestor who is black, regardless how attenuated that ancestral tie, you are black. Even if your skin is whiter than most, your hair straighter and blonder, your eyes bluer or greener, the fact that your great-great-great lost-in-time ancestor was a black person makes you a black person also.

It reminds us of that brilliant film, Monsieur Klein, in which Alain Delon plays Robert Klein, a Parisian art-dealer who is exploiting Jews trying to flee the German invasion of France. When Klein is suspected of being a Jew (due to the existence of another Klein with the same first name living in the same area who is, apparently, Jewish), he goes to see his father to ask if there is, indeed, any Jewish blood in the family. His father replies, enraged, "We've been French and Catholic since Louis the Fourteenth!" An ambiguous statement, at best, given the many years of French history preceding the reign of that king. Did Papa Klein mean only to suggest that the family had German roots? Or was there, indeed, a Jewish ancestor lost in the mists of time?

How do we overcome the hate, the racism, the prejudice? How do we overcome the sentiment that causes believing Christians (whose teacher taught that we must love all as we love ourselves, that judgment is reserved to god alone, that perfect love casteth out fear) to vote to take away the rights of others? How do we change the minds of people who think burning a cross on someone's lawn is an appropriate response to someone whose skin colour, eye shape, religion, or sexual preference is different than their own?

In the coming months, we will have to join together to work even harder than we worked over the past two years. We're all exhausted from what has gone before, but don't rest too long. Our new President sets a good example. The man has taken less than one day off so far, and he worked harder than any one of us the past two years.

This blog returns to its original mission of searching out actionable items of interest everywhere and begs your indulgence for our past months of election fever. It's not easy to blog when laced to the gills with strong pain meds, but La Casa de Los Gatos thanks you for your support and interest over the past year or two. Please let us know what you think about anything we write.

As a warning against the detrimental effects of bigotry we post this photograph:

This fine specimen is currently facing charges in the death of a recruit to his particular Conehead branch of the Ku Klux Klan. Lest we end up with people like him leading, or more likely, chivvying us from behind, let us return anew to the fight against bigotry.

We leave you with this ditty:

"You've got to be taughtTo hate and fear,You've got to be taughtFrom year to year,It's got to be drummedIn your dear little earYou've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraidOf people whose eyes are oddly made,And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,Before you are six or seven or eight,To hate all the people your relatives hate,You've got to be carefully taught "

Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific.

In closing, HuffPo commenter SurferKit would like you all to know:

This is a good time to remind bloggers here at HP that if you see a threatening post made against Obama, Michelle, or his daughters, use the links below to send an email to the appropriate government agencies and let them know.

As this topic indicates, the threats to Obama should NOT be taken lightly. Be assured the FBI and the Secret Service will take your email seriously.

Thanks.

On the plus side, we do want to point out that the majority of people have graciously accepted victory or conceded defeat, as the case may be. And we're not thrilled with the idea of turning in people for "thought crimes." On the minus side, Columbine, and, you know, all those loons posting their plans for dismembering other folks all violent-like all over teh InnerTubes, and then actually going out and doing it. "Who'd'a thunk?" we all cried afterwards. Well, clearly, some of us would'a. And did'a.

Wanda Sykes Comes Out!!!

We love you Wanda!!! Have I told you that I'm a The New Adventures of Old Christine fan? I'd love to see more of Wanda in it.

Yes, Wanda came out yesterday at a Marriage Equality rally in Las Vegas.

Associated Press reports:

"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life," Sykes told a crowd at a gay rights rally in Las Vegas on Saturday.

"Everybody that knows me personally they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives," she said.

Sykes, who is known for her feisty and blunt style, said the passage of California's Proposition 8 made her feel like she was "attacked."

"Now, I gotta get in their face," she said. "I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman, and I'm proud to be gay."

How I started my Caturday ...

Caturday!

It's Caturday, dammit, and although everyone we know is off at the anti-Prop 8 rallies or some other useful, civic activity, we are nursing our soon to be surgically-altered leg (not soon enough, dammit), moping and mourning and feeling like a shut-in.

Also fending off cats who are after our chocolate. What is this about? The newest cat-trick at La Casa de Los Gatos: Zingiber and Gojira like all things sweet (fruit, yoghurt, chocolate), preferably washed down with healthy lacings of wine (white only; not terribly fond of red). Nothing more interesting than watching Zingiber lick the skin right off a green seedless Thompson grape. Fortunately, one grape a day is about his limit. Melons are good, they lick them to death. Also berries. Will eat gushy food occasionally, but prefer cooked meats, no sauces or spices. Chopped fine. Also, shells from boiled peanuts which are slowly licked to death.

Gustav likes salted fish, fish sauce, dried shrimp, and other such stinky stuff, but also has a terrible weakness for cooked meats of any kind, preferably minus any sauces or gravies. Gushy food? Hmph. Kibble? Yes. Must be freshly poured. (??)

Bandicoot likes anything edible except the sweet stuff. Cheese, meat and seafood raw or cooked or turned into kibble, the occasional rice or couscous or bread with butter, jam, or a fat-redolent sauce (no chillies or other spices) is good, in his book. No live animals or even recently-dead animals of any kind PLEEZ. Buttery pastries a BIG plus. The occasional roasted nut or seed, preferably almonds.

Madu likes fresh, raw, live animals best of all. Followed by kibble. Will occasionally condescend to eat gushy food. Will not touch raw or cooked meat of any sort except very occasionally in a fit of Being Difficult. Definitely not interested in dried seafood, smelly sauces, cat treats, or catnip. Rice crackers a big favourite.

So "mice for all" is just a marketing slogan from the giant catfood industry? Finicky little bastids.

Oakland, CA is for Marriage Equality !

all photos (c) 2008 K. Smokey Cormier

Just a short while ago I was in Frank H Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, California for Marriage Equality rally. Hundreds of cities across the U.S. and, I believe, around the world were holding rallies like this to promote marriage for all people -- no special rights -- just EQUALITY.

I kept looking for my buddy, Barb, ‘cause I knew she’d be there. And ... eventually I found her -- even though it was very crowded by the time I saw her.

I almost didn’t go because Ms. Manitoba believes that the state ... the government, in other words, should have no involvement in any marriages. Marriages are a private matter. If you need to set certain things down for legal reasons -- like custody, property ownership, immigration rights of your partner, inheritence etc. -- then you go through a legal process of writing up a contract. Just like any other legal matter.

I went to the rally because I have always been for equal rights for everyone! Equality. I was at rallies in the sixties for equal rights -- for all kinds of people. I have never been one of those lesbians that cared only about my rights. Equality for everyone!

The rally started (I was happy to see) with herbal smudging from a local First Nation lesbian (for you USers, that’s Canadian for “Native American”). She actually runs my local pet supply store that my kids and I go to. Then there was a circle of gay/lesbian First Nation drummers ... drumming out the main message: Love.

gay/lesbian First Nation drummers at the Marriage Equality Rally in Oakland, California

Then there was this great speaker who was going to be the MC for the rally -- but, he didn’t introduce himself so I have no idea what his name is! He had great spirit and was very articulate.

The next speaker was a lesbian from Iran. She was great!! I wish I had taped what she said. Very powerful. Basically her message was this: the Religious Right took over my country -- do you really want the Religious Right to take over the U.S.?

I had to leave after about an hour.

Here are some photos from the rally ...

you've got to be very prejudiced and cold-hearted to want to deny these cuties the right to marry!

Human Rights: CA. Proposition 8

The election results made us so joyful with Obama's win that we couldn't bear to tarnish the excitement with thoughts of the passage of California Proposition 8 or, as the voters here now refer to it, Proposition Hate.

However, we've been seething about it ever since it passed and sooner or later we have to share the seethe. California, hello? Excuse me? What the fuck did Arnie put in the water that people actually marched to the polls and voted against their LGBTQ brothers and sisters?

La Casa de Los Gatos is well aware that not all of California is progressive. SF, LA, Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, Monterey, Carmel, Mendocino, maybe a few other small towns here and there, are pretty forward-thinking and have a significant population of LGBTQ people. Orange County has a fair number of pinheads, and military areas like San Diego are pretty fucking hopeless. But still, people! Why you wanna do this for? What business is it of yours who does what with their naughty bits? You want people checking around in your bedroom? No? Then get the hell out of our bedrooms!

This is ridiculous, and we're not going to put up with it. Civil rights should never be left to the will of the majority because the majority tends to oppose civil rights for minorities (of any ilk). Imagine if we had asked the people to vote on slavery. There were only a few people brave enough to oppose it at the time. The majority would have happily permitted it to continue or merely ignored the issue.

In the same way we cannot leave the right of LGBTQ folks to love and marry who they will in the hands of those who have no understanding or empathy on this issue. Straight people say, "Well we don't care who you have sex with, just don't flaunt it in our faces. You can have civil unions. You'll have the same rights. Leave us marriage." (No, we don't personally know anyone who actually says such things because we strive not to associate with troglodytes. However, such things and much worse can be found in a few minutes of perusing teh InnerTubes.)

Unfortunately, this is a myth. It's simply not true that gay people have all the rights that straight people have through a civil union. For one thing, in community property states, married people who own property in common cannot sell or give away any part of that property without their spouse's explicit consent. Upon one spouse's death, the other spouse inherits the entire property as a whole — no part of it can be alienated without the surviving spouse's consent, and no probate is required for the property to pass intact from one spouse to the other.

A civil union confers some benefits on the partners thereto, but consider the case of Lisa Pond who was traveling with her partner and children when she suffered a brain aneurysm. Her partner and family were not permitted to see her on her deathbed. Would that happen to a straight couple? No. Consider the case of a gay couple who spent twenty years or more building a home and family, acquiring property together. Should one partner die, regardless of any contract or property arrangement to the contrary, the same biological relations who kicked the dead partner out of their home for being gay could descend upon the couple's property and contest the will and boot the survivor out of the home in which they had invested a lifetime of earnings and hopes. Could that happen to a straight couple? The family could try it, but the courts would most likely rule for the survivor.

Well, the time has come to insist on the same spousal rights for gay couples, and quite frankly we don't care what the hell you call it — civil union, marriage, schtuppenpupik — if it will allow a partner at their dying partner's bedside in any state in the country; if it will guarantee that two people in a loving relationship can legally inherit one from the other to no less an extent than any other people in such a relationship despite their sexual preference; if it will give LGBTQ partners the same tax breaks and family rates on health care and child care and family matters, then call it what you will but give us our rights.

Today is the day that LGBTQ people all over this country march in support of gay rights, and against such antigay legislation as California's shameful Proposition 8. They'll be marching in Portland; InTheNameOf8 lists groups that will be working against Prop 8 nationwide; JoinTheImpact gives pointers on how to organize yourselves, including a site that tells you how to find your local protest.

Fellow digger and gay activist Scoyboy of OnTopmag has a fine piece on the spontaneous marches erupting across the nation.

In good news, many Mormons are disgusted enough by their church's shameful support of this equality-denying proposition to up 'n leave. Thank you to those of our Mormon brothers and sisters who stand with us.

We urge our Catholic brothers and sisters to take a stand against the hate being perpetrated by their religion. Jesus did not teach hatred and discrimination. He taught love and acceptance. He sat with beggars and prostitutes and dined with publicans and outcasts. He did not, as the fathers of today's church do, wine and dine on gold and silver with the wealthy and powerful while turning his back on the poor who starve among us. If you profess to believe in him, then you must act in support of his message and stand up for the rights of your LGBTQ brothers and sisters and not permit Proposition 8 to take away the rights of a loving couple to marry and raise a family — a right that you yourselves possess and take for granted.

To do something about this shameful and discriminatory proposition, you can go here and sign the pledge.

Be sure to write the gubernator, who will be getting an earful from the bigots and haters who poured millions into this campaign.

Finally, for those who think that the record numbers of Black American voters who turned out for Obama were responsible for the passing of Proposition 8, stop it, OK? Just quit. Go read this first, and then come back and flap your gums if you still can. To imply that Black Americans are responsible for this hateful proposition passing is to hold all White Americans, gay and straight, harmless on the issue. And how could that be, when Black Americans comprise a whole six fucking per cent of the California electorate? Do you think if even half the White churchgoing population had voted against this proposition, it would have passed even if every single Black voter voted for it? And, furthermore, are there no LGBTQ Black Americans, or people of Tint among the ranks of the various LGBTQ folks? Is it not a clear manifestation of prejudice to assume that all LGBTQ persons are White, that White is the default colour of LGBTQ people?

Prop 8 passed because of gullibility and misinformation. The religious churchgoers were told that if it did not pass, their churches might be shut down, their preachers jailed. We don't find that a compelling argument, but religious people we're not. So we understand that they voted out of ignorance and fear. Such ignorance and fear must not dictate our lives though. Already the forces of provocateurism are at work, with "unknown individuals" mailing packets of white powder to various religious factions. We doubt that LGBTQ people were behind that, but if they were, we urge them to remember to whose detriment such actions redound.

Much as we may dislike it, we have to reach out to our churchgoing religious friends and neighbours and engage them in discourse. For a perfect love casteth out fear. And quite frankly, it's time everybody got over this fucking fear hangover that's been chewing our hineys to ribbons for nearly a decade.

So get out there, people, and wave a flag or a banner or a poster for those of us who can't stand up. We're with you in spirit. This fight ain't over, but we all have to fight it.

The Financial Crisis: Why the Secrecy?

Monitoring. Oversight. Does Paulson really believe that we don't care who he hands money to? We do care. We want to know why some companies are being bailed out while others are not. What's the skinny? And what are the terms and conditions? If we don't have monitoring and openness about all that money -- why not just go into our bank accounts and take the money? Just vacuum it up.

Here's a letter in today's San Francisco Chronicle:

Editor - Is the existing administration attempting to bankrupt the U.S. government before the new administration can begin?

Buried in the Nov. 11 Chronicle are two articles "Treasury lets banks have big tax breaks" and more startling, "Fed won't disclose recipients of loans (Daily Digest)." The latter disclosed that, "the Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loads."

What is going on here?

What are The Chronicle and the rest of the press doing to publicize what appears to be a raid on the national treasury? Why the secrecy? Are they lining the pockets of their cronies?

I encourage The Chronicle to perform the duty that freedom of the press allows you. Investigate this and let us know that you care and what we can do, if anything.

-- John Boerger San Francisco

Thank you, John Boerger for writing such a great letter! What we can do: write letter to the editor of The Chronicle and other papers quoting John Boerger and pushing for these papers to do their investigative reporting. Let's have at it!